Lost Battersea Power Station Development Plans Rediscovered

The iconic Battersea Power Station site is currently in the process of being neutered and turned into flats for rich people, but an alternative development in the late 1980s could've seen it become a crazy theme park -- with a bullet train link across the Thames.

The early concept drawings were put together by the site's first private owner, John Broome, who purchased the decaying site from the government in 1987 for a bargain price of £1.5m. That was before owning property became fashionable and before the Battersea site was cleared of the asbestos cladding that made it something of a liability.

Broome's plan was to turn the whole site into a theme park, with roller-coasters, an oceanarium, cinemas, gardens and parks, accessed via a direct train link to Victoria station, building an enclosed resort for London right bang in the middle of the city. It might've been nice. Or a nightmarish giant Butlins. We'll never know.

Sadly for Broome and fans of all-inclusive holiday resorts, his plan died in 1993, as money troubles and the property market issues of the day forced the owner to sell it on. [Standard]